Brain Plasticity

Brain Plasticity Brain Development, Plasticity, and Behavior by Bryan Kolb felt that the anatomical effects and behavioral effects were associated with damage to an infant’s brain. Over a half a million people in the world suffer from brain injury a year. These injuries can lead to permanent disorders in perception, movement, language, and personality. (Kolb, 1989) There were several approaches in his research. The first approach was studying the operations of a normal brain. The second was to study behavioral patterns of a dysfunctional brain in order to compare it to that of a normal brain, and the third was to see if you could alter a brain in the middle of its development to see how the changes occur. There were two cases where women had severe head injuries and they injured the same areas of their brain, but their brains did not function the same. The study was to find out how they were different though the injuries were the same. There were several experiments conducted on rats to determine how this happens. The rats fell into the three groups as mentioned earlier. Some of the rats had their neocortexes removed. These were removed at different ages of the rats. This was to make it similar to the procedure used on children with use of only one hemisphere of their brain. They found these to have similar impacts, and that the ability to control their limbs were lacking. They then put rats in a tank of water that had a platform for escape. The rats that had the procedure done as adults did significantly worse than the rats that had it at a younger age. It has been concluded that there are many actors that influence how the rat or human will respond, these being IQ, personality, and handiness. The scientists also did a behavioral experiment by putting an electric prod in the rat’s home. The rats at a younger age during surgery buried the prod in saw dust and avoided getting shocked. The rats that were done at middle age avoided the prod, but

References: Anand, K. J. (2000). Pain, plasticity, and premature birth: a prescription for permanent suffering? Berk, L. E. (2012). Infants and children prenatal through middle childhood (Seventh ed.). Pearson Inc: Pearson. Kim, P., Leckman, J., Mayes, L., Feldman, R., & Wang, X. (2010). The plasticity of the human maternal brain: Longitudinal changes in brain anatomy during early postpartum period Kolb, B. (1989). Brain development, plasticity/ and behavior. American Psychologist, 44(9), 1203-1212 Kolb, B. (1998). Brian plasticity and behavior. Annual Review of Psychology, 49, 43-64. Retrieved December 15, 2012, from the Proquest database. Luciana, M. (2003). Cognative development in children born preterm: Implications for theories of brain plasticity following early injury Young., Baumbauer., Hillyer., & Joynes. (2008). Local Anesthetic Treatment Significantly Attenuates Acute Pain Responding But Does Not Prevent the Neonatal Injury- Induced Reduction In Adult Spinal Behavioral Plasticity